Increasing production quantities or adding different styles to your collection is a frequently asked question when starting a fashion business. Even though this is no rocket science, making this decision can be tricky. Looking back at your budget, your timeline, and your marketing plan before moving forward with your decision is one of the keys to making a strategic move. Especially when launching a new brand.
Allocating your money in the right place is crucial to achieving the results you seek. Especially when we are talking about production quantities. Even if you have the budget to develop all styles you want and produce as many quantities as you wish for, nobody wants to be sitting in inventory and not make profits.
Remember the blog INSIDE THE FASHION INDUSTRY - Choosing Your Production Numbers, where I mentioned marketing investment? If you do remember, you would know that I used these exact words: your investment in marketing needs to be coherent with your investment in production. If you do not know that, run to that post right after you are done here!
But putting marketing aside for one second, you need to look at your budget and timeline. Developing new styles takes time and money! If you have a collection sketched, and the right budget for development, it is easier to develop everything together, within the same time frame and cut some styles down the road. At least you will have those styles already developed and you can possibly use them in the future with different fabrics and colors.
But when you are halfway through development and decide to add new styles, you have to take into consideration that the development will take longer - aka production will be delayed! With that in mind, you need to make sure that adding new styles to your collection will not cause a delay in your launch date.
Besides your timeline, you need to look back to your budget and see what fits in your pocket. Developing new styles will always be more expensive than increasing production numbers. But, on the other hand, developing different styles gives you a better view of what your customer wants and likes the most about your brand.
Now, circling back to marketing. This is the moment to put these three factors together and weigh them. You have to make this decision thinking of your target market. What they buy and how much they can buy is something that you need to know when making this decision.
A marketing plan can give you numbers. It gives you projected sales. But it will not tell you what your customers will buy most. That is why, when deciding between adding styles or increasing production numbers there is no right or wrong. Life is a trial, and so are business decisions. The difference here is that the trial cost money and a lifetime of dreams. Weighting these three factors together is important when making this decision and, mostly, will help you create a strategy that leaves less room for error and can reflect in future decisions for your brand.
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